TWO AND A HALF MEN

AMERICA‘S #1 SITCOM with A18-49, W18-49, A25-54 & W25-54TWO AND A HALF MEN
Available from Warner Bros. Domestic Cable Distribution
WBDCD.com:  Get with the programming – online.Source: NTI Explorer, US Rtg, 12/12-12/18/05. Sitcom=CS Typecode

CYNTHIA TURNER’S
Cynopsis

12/23/05

Good morning.  It’s Friday, December 23, 2005, and this is your first early morning briefing.
 
Comcast Corporation will launch a Family programming package with an average of 35-40 channels in the beginning of 2006. The new Family Tier will include 16 networks of primarily G-rated content, all local/national broadcast channels (ABC, NBC, CBS, UPN, WB, FOX and PBS), religious broadcast shows, Hispanic channels (such as Univision and Telemundo) and public access programming.  In addition to the 20-25 Basic Cable Tier channels, the Family Tier will include Disney Channel, HGTV, Toon Disney, Food Network, PBS KIDS Sprout, DIY, Discovery Kids, CNN Headline News, Science Channel (Discovery), The Weather Channel, Nickelodeon/Nick Too, National Geographic, Nickelodeon GAS (Games and Sports), C-SPAN, C-SPAN 2 and TBN (Trinity Broadcasting).  The new package will be launched nationally in markets with Comcast’s Digital Cable service.  Aside from CNN, notably absent are the Turner Networks and most particularly Cartoon Network (perhaps a result of its Adult Swim block which is definitely not for kids) and digital kids network Boomerang.* MORE GOOD STUFF *ABC News will make some of its on-air content available to Verizon customers via the Verizon mobile service VCast.  Among the offerings are clips from Good Morning American, World News Tonight, Nightline, as well as other ABC News programming, and various celebrity interviews. ABC News Mobile video content reaches subscribers in the U.S. and in several international markets, and is available through the mobile content aggregators MobiTV, GOTV and SmartVideo.

See if this makes any sense to you whatsoever:  A woman in New Mexico believes that for the past five years David Letterman has been sending her coded messages via “special” words, eyebrow movements and body language, during his late night show.  These messages have “told” her various things including that he loves her, wants her to give up her life in New Mexico and come to New York because he wanted to marry her and make her his co-host.  All of this she says caused her mental cruelty, bankruptcy and sleep deprivation, and she has petitioned a Judge to issue a restraining order against Letterman.  The restraining order, which the Judge signed (!), calls for Letterman to say 100 yard away from her at all times, refrain from “connecting” with her.  The woman had also asked in her petition (acting as her own attorney) that Letterman refrain from thinking about her, and “release [her] from his mental harrassment and hammering.” As you might imagine, Letterman’s attorneys are requesting the court toss the restraining order, that it is an abuse of the judicial system and is frivilous.  A court date has been set for January 12.  And by the way, she also says she’s getting mental messages from Regis Philbin and Kelsey Grammer. 

Cynopsis will be off all next week, returning on January 34d.  In the meantime, a quick housekeeping note — when we return in the New Year, we come to you from new offices:  Cynopsis One Corporate Drive, Suite 724 Shelton, CT 06484 and new phone and fax numbers:  Ph: 203-926-9878, and Fax: 203-926-9865.  You can bet there will also be a new email address, but I don’t have that for you yet.  Have a wonderful holiday week, see you in the New Year!

* NEW ORDERS / CASTING / DEVELOPMENT / PRODUCTION *After the success of three days of Deal or No Deal, NBC has ordered additional episodes of the Howie Mandel hosted game show from Endemol USA.  Each night this week the show has aired at 8pm, and has grown night to night in the A18-49 demo from a 3.9 on Monday, 4.6 on Tuesday and a 4.9 on Wednesday.

* EXECUTIVE MOVES *ImaginAsian Entertainment has made a few exec changes.  J. Edward Lee was named as EVP/COO.  He was previously the co-founder/SVP of WorldGate and most recently served as EVP at technology company Predictive Media.  Tino Calabria was pulled in as VP/Operations.  Tino was most recently VP/on-air operations, media management for MTV Networks.  Anil Srivatsa has been upped to EVP/Affiliate Sales and New Business Development.  He was previously SVP/Affiliate Sales and Operations.  David L. Chu was also promoted from VP to SVP/Programming and Production.* RATINGS *Broadcast Daytime Ratings Rankings – Women 18-49, week of December 12-18, 2005:
General Hospital         2.1/12
Young & Restless         2.0/14
All My Children          1.8/12
One Life to Live                 1.8/11
Days of Our Lives       1.7/11
Bold & Beautiful         1.6/10
Price is Right 2                 1.5/11
As the World Turns      1.5/9
The View                 1.3/9
Guiding Light            1.3/8
Passions                 1.3/9
Price is Right 1                 1.2/9
Source: Nielsen’s Galaxy Explorer, NTI as dated

Top 10 M-F Syndicated Strip Series for the week of Dec 5-11, 2005 ranked by HH Rtg
Wheel of Fortune (King World)                  8.8 AA
Jeopardy (King World)                                7.2 AA
Oprah (King World)                                    7.2 AA / 7.3 GAA
Everybody Loves Raymond (King World)  6.7 AA / 8.8 GAA
Seinfeld (Sony)                                           5.8 AA / 7.3 GAA
Dr. Phil (King World)                                  5.3 AA / 5.3 GAA
Entertainment Tonight (Paramount)          5.2 AA / 5.4 GAA
Friends (Warner Bros.)                              5.2 AA / 6.8 GAA
Judge Judy (Paramount)                            4.9 AA / 7.6 GAA
That ’70s Show (Carsey-Werner)  4.3 AA / 5.5 GAA
Source: Nielsen Media Research

Top 10 M-F Syndicated Strip Series for the week of Dec 5-11, 2005 ranked by A18-49
Seinfeld (Sony)                                           3.9 AA / 4.8 GAA
Everybody Loves Raymond (King World)  3.7 AA / 4.8 GAA
Friends (Warner Bros.)                              3.6 AA / 4.8 GAA
That ’70s Show (Carsey-Werner)              3.1 AA / 3.9 GAA
Oprah (King World)                                    2.8 AA / 2.8 GAA
Wheel of Fortune (King World)                  2.5 AA
Entertainment Tonight (Paramount)          2.2 AA / 2.2 GAA
Jeopardy (King World)                                2.1 AA
King of Queens (Sony Pictures TV)       1.9 AA / 2.5 GAA
Dr. Phil (King World)                                  1.9 AA / 1.9 GAA
Source: Nielsen Media Research

Wednesday — A18-49 Analysis:   NBC won the night on Wednesday with an overall 3.4/10 A18-49, according to Nielsen Media Research.  CBS was #2 by a tenth of a rating point over ABC, which in turn was just a tenth ahead of Fox.  At 8p Howie Mandel continues to wow, drawing a 4.9/15 for Deal or No Deal, and well ahead of the rest of the field.  Unfortunately, Martha’s finale of The Apprentice lost nearly half of Howie’s audience, and managed only a 2.8/8 at 9p, behind CBS’ Criminal Minds which earned a 3.5/10.  At 10p CBS stayed on top with a 3.9/8 for a repeat of CSI: NY.

Fast Affiliate Ratings: Wednesday, December 21, 2005, for all Networks – time period averages. Source: Nielsen Media Research. 

CBS     6.6/11   7th Annual A Home for the Holidays 3.5/6, Criminal Minds [r] 8.1/13, CSI:NY [r] 8.1/14

NBC     6.5/11   Deal or No Deal 8.4/14, The Apprentice Martha Stewart [f] 5.0/8, Law & Order [r] 6.2/10

ABC     4.6/8    George Lopez [r] 4.9/8, Freddie [r] 4.3/7, Lost [r] 4.8/8, Lost [r] 4.3/7

Fox     3.6/6    That 70’s Show [r] 3.2/5, Stacked 2.7/4, Trading Spouses  4.2/7

UPN     1.8/3   Everybody Hates Chris [r] 2.3/4, Girlfriends [r] 1.8/3, Veronica Mars [r] 1.5/2

WB      1.1/2    One Tree Hill [r] 1.3/2,  Related [r] 1.0/2

A18-49:  NBC 3.4/10, CBS 2.8/8, ABC 2.7/8, Fox 2.6/7, UPN 0.9/3, WB 0.6/2

Friday Fun Fact:  This is the 50th Anniversary that NORAD and its predecessor, the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) have tracked Santa. The tradition began after a Colorado Springs-based Sears Roebuck & Co. store advertisement for children to call Santa on a special “hotline” included an inadvertently misprinted telephone number. Instead of Santa, the phone number put kids through to the CONAD Commander-in-Chief’s operations “hotline.” The Director of Operations, Colonel Harry Shoup, received the first “Santa” call on Christmas Eve 1955. Realizing what had happened, Colonel Shoup had his staff check radar data to see if there was any indication of Santa making his way south from the North Pole. Indeed there were signs of Santa and children who called were given an update on Santa’s position. Thus, the tradition was born, and NORAD has been tracking Santa every year since. In 1997 NORAD’s website includes a Santa tracker: www.noradsanta.org.

The History Channel presents This Day in History:
1986:  After nine days and four minutes in the sky, the experimental aircraft Voyager lands at Edwards Air Force Base in California, completing the first nonstop flight around the globe on one load of fuel. Piloted by Americans Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, Voyager was made mostly of plastic and stiffened paper and carried more than three times its weight in fuel when it took off from Edwards Air Force Base on December 14. By the time it returned, after flying 25,012 miles around the planet, it had just five gallons of fuel left in its remaining operational fuel tank.

Answer to Yesterday’s Trivia Question: Major John marries Polly, and takes on three daughters in what TV show?   Yep, it’s MAJOR DAD.  Kudos to the entire free world on this one – consider it an early holiday gift!

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE FROM COURT TV

Court TV ^® Wishes You and Yours A Happy & Healthy Holiday!

No Trivia Question -we’re off until after the New Year.  Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and a wonderful Happy New Year to us all!

Later — Cyn
12.23.05 – 4:49am
Ad Sales – Barbara Shapiro – 203-583-1224 /

Classifieds – Trish Pihonak – 203.381-9096 /

If you’d rather listen than read, you can sign up for the Cynopsis: In Your Ear podcast available for download each morning by 630a at www.cynopsis.com or via iTunes 4.9 listed in the podcast directory under “News”  as well as under Yahoo Podcast http://podcasts.yahoo.com/.

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Copyright Cynthia Turner 2005

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WHAT’S ON TONIGHT:  Friday, December 23, 2005

ABC              Supernanny [r], Hope and Faith [r], Hot Properties, 20/20
CBS              Ghost Whisperer [r], Close to Home [r], Numb3rs  [r]
FOX              Movie Special:  Ice Age
NBC              Deal or No Deal, Dateline NBC,  Law & Order: CI [r]
i                America’s Most Talented Kid, Movie: He Sees You When You’re Sleeping
UPN              Friday Night Smackdown
WB               WB Movie: Like Mike
TELE             Cinemundo Especial (7-9p), Cinemundo Especial (9-11p)
UNIV             Cine Especial: Jesus, el Nino Dios (7-10p), Asi es … Gilberto Gless en Navidad